Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Sir Dai Llewellyn passed away recently in England and despite it being politically incorrect, I rather admire this chap. He was the very definition of a player. He was nicknamed “Seducer of the Valleys”, “Conquistador of the Canapé Circuit”, “Dai 'Lock Up Your Daughters’ Llewellyn” or simply “Dirty Dai”.He was a product of another age that we will likely never see again. The smooth Sean Connery James Bond type who could have any woman he wanted. It would be easy to dismiss him as a upper class twit and a waste of space and perhaps he was. But there's still a small part of every man that would like to be that guy, if only for a short time.

Monday, January 12, 2009

If you're like me, you don't look super close at your bank statements. I confess, I am lax. But my beloved wife is NOT lax. She is a hawk. Nothing escapes her view. Which is why she caught the bogus check that took $24.95 out of our account. The same thing had happened to her about two months ago and fixing it was a pain in the ass.

I don't know how they got my account into, but they did. They then made out a check from ME to a company called Payment systems for a 'subscription' (apparently to an adult website). There is a phone number and a reference number on the check. The company that answers the phone is called M Billing or any of a number of variations. They quickly offered to refund the money (Rossana received hers promptly). They claim to only be a billing processor. Using the googles I traced their official address to Cypress. Read into that what you will. I smell a rat.

There is some internet buzz that the account information was leaked from Mary Kay or from Propay.com When Rossana was hit, they had her old address on the check, mine had my current address. Some people have been hit multiple times. We will likely never know the source of the leak. So many companies have your account data these days its frightening.

Tomorrow I will go to the bank, open a new business account, move most of our money into it, check for any outstanding checks, then close the account and order new computer checks. Fun.

Now go check your bank statement, here are somelinks to more info on the scam.